Founder Of Women's Site Bustle Makes Heartfelt Apology To Everyone He Enraged, Calls Past Few Days 'Incredibly Painful'

If you've ever met Bryan Goldberg, a few things about the
Bleacher Report co-founder become abundantly clear. He's
confident, funny and smart.

On Tuesday,
when he announced his new venture Bustle, those traits were
misconstrued. His confidence came across as arrogance; his wit
came across as snark. His intelligence was replaced by ignorance
for the saturated, women's market Bustle wants to compete
in.

Media and
startup pundits came out in droves to bash Bustle and Goldberg.
Among them: women in tech advocate Rachel Sklar, digital media
executive Elizabeth Spiers, and Jezebel's Anna
Holmes.

"Goldberg’s
announcement/press release began with the dubious assertion — now
'edited' after much criticism — that there were no major
companies going after the women’s market...He also asserted
that he had stumbled upon the heretofore undiscovered fact women
have multiple interests...All of these things drew
criticism anyone with an IQ over 80 and enough intelligence to
know that the interests of women extend beyond fashion,
cosmetics, and celebrities and that this is not novel."

Even Dave McClure, an investor in Bustle who's also known to be
outspoken, agrees Goldberg handled his launch wrong. "There are
ways that you want to go out of the door that aren't
disrespectful to your audience,"
he told Inc.

Goldberg says he has a thick-skin from his Bleacher Report days
but has admittedly struggled with the recent criticism. He calls
the blow back "incredibly painful."

Today, he's written a heartfelt apology to all of the people he's
enraged. Titled "Take Two," his
first line sums up the lengthy post. "I messed up," says
Goldberg.

He
bullet points his initial post's biggest
mistakes.

It over-simplified the editorial landscape.

It failed to highlight the fact that there are a
lot of great women’s publications out there.

It took a tongue-in-cheek approach for part of
the fundraise announcement, at one point joking about cosmetics.
That was a horrible decision. Especially given how difficult it
is for people (and women especially) to raise capital to bring
their ideas to life. I put an immense amount of time into getting
Bustle off the ground. I owed it to myself, my team, and all
entrepreneurs to treat the moment with full seriousness.

To a lot of people, it came across as pandering. And
it doesn’t matter if that wasn’t my intention. That’s how it came
across.